One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Films of 1983: Blue Thunder

John
Badham had a banner year in 1983 as the director of two blockbuster
techno-thrillers: War Games and Blue Thunder.

Both
films involve the bugaboo of advanced computer technology, which was, generally
speaking, the broad theme of many genre films in 1983. Films from Superman III andNever
Say Never Againto the anthology Nightmares circled around the
frightening notion that our technology might run amok, or at the very least
fall into the wrong hands.

Blue
Thunder is
among the most entertaining of this 1983 techno-bunch, and it pushes the pedal
hard on action and spectacular fireworks. Although some of the character
dialogue is undeniably clunky, the movie nonetheless accurately forecasts the
rise of the modern surveillance state, one fact that makes the film relevant in
2012. Today, however, the helicopter
prototype’s spying capability looks positively quaint.

Certainly,
Blue
Thunder owes some creative debt to 1982’s Firefox, another film concerning
a deadly hi-tech aircraft and a protagonist battling PTSD following the Vietnam
War. Yet the action here is so rousing
that it is easy to gloss over the film’s occasionally contrived plot mechanisms
or its transparent debt to other cinematic thrillers.

In
fact, Blue Thunder was so well-received by audiences of the day that
it spawned a TV spin-off (also titled Blue Thunder), a terrific TV
knock-off (Airwolf), and a model kit of the titular vehicle, which I owned,
built…and cherished. Wish I still had it…

Although
this film is nearly thirty years old, Blue Thunder’s visceral obsession with
state-of-the-art aerial combat (over a modern American city, Los Angeles, no
less), permits it to hold up much better than WarGames. Also, the film remains relevant in part
because of the strongly enunciated social commentary about man and his machines.

In
short, machines don’t yet boast the capacity for morality, and so man must decide how to use his new toys. In Frank Murphy -- a veteran who witnessed immorality among men in Vietnam -- the audience
gets a hero who represents mankind’s inherent struggle against entrenched
power, and power unconcerned with the good of the many, but rather the riches
of a few. Yet despite being outnumbered
and outgunned, Murphy won’t let the machine take over, even if that outcome is precisely
what big government and big business apparently desire.

In
gazing intently at conspiracy and corruption (not to mention the nexus of
government and big business government contractors), Blue Thunder in some
fashion feels like a product of the 1970s, the great age of conspiracy
movies. But the strong focus on
computers and technology also gives it the Video Game Age sheen of the early
1980s.

In
whatever way one chooses to parse the film, Blue Thunder remains a
hell of a lot of fun.

“I love morals, and the
moral of this story is: If you're walkin' on eggs, don't hop.”

Cop
Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) and his rookie co-pilot Lymangood (Daniel Stern) of
Los Angeles Air Support test fly a new urban pacification helicopter nicknamed
“Blue Thunder,” over the city streets, and while on surveillance or “whisper”
mode, learn of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving corruption and murder.

The
makers of Blue Thunder prototype have been making trouble in L.A.’s barrio so
the city will requisition more copters to manage the crime problem before the
upcoming 1984 Olympics. This top secret
project to create urban mayhem is called Project T.H.O.R. (Tactical Helicopter
Offensive Response). Worse, Murphy’s old
nemesis from the Vietnam War, Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) is one of the
key conspirators behind the scenes.

Murphy
and Lymangood -- or JAFO (Just Another F’ing Observer) -- secretly videotape a
conversation about T.H.O.R. from the cockpit of Blue Thunder but soon become
fugitives from the police and City Hall.
When Lymangood is murdered by Cochrane’s goons, Murphy steals Blue
Thunder and asks his girlfriend, Kate (Candy Clark) to deliver the incriminating
videotape to a local news station.

While
Kate eludes the police on the ground, Blue Thunder and Murphy are called upon
to battle police helicopters, state-of-the-art Air force jets (armed with
heat-seeking missiles), and Cochrane’s gun ship…

“You're really riding with
the angels, sweetheart.”

The
Blue
Thunder screenplay by the late Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby certainly
sets up some amazing action sequences, but it’s also clumsy and contrived at crucial
points.

For
instance, McDowell utters his character’s catchphrase -- “Catch you later!” -- a whopping three times in the first forty
five minutes of the film, thus paving the way for a triumphant turnaround from
Murphy at the denouement. When Murphy
blows up Cochrane’s gunship, he says, inevitably, “Catch you later!” The laborious
repetition of the phrase is so contrived and stupid that it’s easy to see the
punch line coming. That established, the
audience I saw the film with in the theater in 1983 absolutely loved it, so who
am I to complain?

Similarly,
there’s a weird scene early in the film wherein Kate, Murphy’s girlfriend, takes
a wrong turn on the way to a Sunday family outing with Frank and her son. She recklessly drives her car into oncoming
traffic to get back on course, and, well, let’s just say it’s an egregiously
hazardous act, especially with a child on board. But, of course, Kate’s slightly-crazy nature
(not to mention demolition-derby driving skills…) are important ingredients in
the film’s climax, so again, we’re seeing a laborious and somewhat clumsy
set-up.

You
could probably make the same point about all the exposition regarding Murphy’s
aerodynamically-impossible “loop” in a chopper.
It gets brought up so many times before the film’s end that we just know
there’s going to be a “pay off.”

Certainly,
Blue
Thunder is not alone in harvesting seeds like this early in the film,
for cropping at the climax. It’s just that the set-ups here are so brazenly transparent.

Yet
here’s the thing. You absolutely will not care.

The
film’s final thirty minutes feature jaw-dropping stunt after jaw-dropping
stunt, both on the ground and in the air.
And Blue Thunder vets this material with almost no fakery, which is
incredible. As an adrenaline ride, then,
Blue
Thunder succeeds wildly. This
film also made me realize just how long it’s been since we’ve seen an action
movie like this one; one that doesn’t rely, to some unhealthy extent, on digital
effects. The car chase, in particular,
is riveting.

It
may not be politically-correct to write this, but there’s a thrill that comes
from knowing that movie stuntmen and stunt pilots really performed the actions
in question. Here, some of the
helicopter stunts near the ground, and weaving in and around a sewer and bridge
system, are downright stunning (and terrifying). As a result, you leave a viewing of the movie
feeling exhilarated.

Blue Thunder in action.

And again...

To
its credit, Blue Thunder also finds a perfect metaphor for the relationship
between man and machine. Murphy wears a clunky-looking wrist-watch that can
count up to a minute, or sixty seconds.

As it does so, it displays a very 1980s-style, spiro-graph-looking graphic of a
circle moving towards completion. Murphy utilizes this stop-watch function to
test his sanity….several times-a-day. If
he can still tell time, or possess a “feeling” about the reality of time, he’s
sure he isn’t going insane.

In
terms of psychology, this timed “sanity test” might be considered a little bit
hokey. In terms of metaphor, it’s
actually pretty good. The watch, like
Blue Thunder itself, is a machine that humans can control…if they choose to do
so.

Technology too is a test, then, to
be mastered, not something that should be allowed to oppress or control
mankind. Murphy understands this fact of life.
He masters his life (represented by the watch) and uses that same
determination to master the helicopter, and, finally, make an ethical final decision
about it. If he can master terrifying memories (represented by the Vietnam flashbacks), then certainly Murphy and others can master machines and computers.

Mastering self; mastering the machine.

At
its heart, Blue Thunder concerns this idea, that man must rein in and
manage his machines, and not vice-versa, or humanity will pay the price. In addition, however, the film worries about
new technologies which could diminish privacy and create a Big Brother-type world
where no one’s secrets are safe.

At
one point, Murphy and Lymangood track a motorcycle cop to an assignation with a
bored housewife. They listen in on him
making love to her, and then, afterwards, erase the tape, realizing that it is
a horrible invasion of privacy. Again,
Murphy acts as the film’s moral barometer.
That motorcycle cop may be a laughing stock, and he may be engaged in a
morally-questionable act, but, as Murphy concludes, people deserve to have
their “quickies” in peace.

That’s a
silly example, perhaps, of what’s at stake in the modern surveillance society,
but like the stop-watch metaphor, it concisely makes an important point. If we are to remain free, we must have some
surveillance free zones where we can simply be….human. We must have some places to let down and simply be ourselves, without fear of being observed, or worse, blackmailed.

What happens when machines are everywhere, and they see and hear everything?

From
an amazingly graphic scene of naked calisthenics (!) early-on to a great supporting
performance by Warren Oates as Murphy’s put-upon superior at Air Support, Blue
Thunder flies by with almost no wasted energy, and a surfeit of good
humor, intrigue and action. If I had to
select one film today, I’d probably choose Blue Thunder over WarGames,
in terms of Badham’s oeuvre, in part because of the performances, in part
because of the rousing action, and in part because of that gorgeous helicopter,
which even today looks like absolute poetry in motion.

The
film’s final scene, which sees Murphy pulp Blue Thunder in a final act of
defiance to City Hall, makes perfect sense in terms of the film’s theme and
story line. But I still hate to see the old girl go up in a fireball.

Of course, It’s the right climactic move for a movie about
conspiracies and about concerns over privacy.
But the thirteen year old kid who first saw Blue Thunderjust knew there should have been further
adventures, with Murphy again mastering the (wonderful) machine.

7 comments:

Wow, I haven't seen this one since I was a kid! I loved it though, I worshiped that helicopter! And I watched Airwolf all the time, loved how slick it looked. I remember there was this debate amongst my friends over which one was cooler, Airwolf or Blue Thunder.

This film came out during a time when 'super' vehicles where big in theaters and television: it was the day of Knight Rider, Automan (remember that one? The car that looked like it came out of TRON?) and StreetHawk, the one about the Motorcyle that would shoot lazer beams! Firefox was also a product of those years, and so was Black Moon Rising (written by John Carpenter!). Gotta love those 80's!

I share your worship for both Blue Thunder and Airwolf. Those productions made me a life-long fan of copters, and building helicopter models. I think, in the end, Airwolf may have been cooler. But I loved my Blue Thunder model and always hoped for more episodes.

Roy Scheider and a bad ass chopper. What could be wrong with that? Interesting that they made some predictions that came true, HUDs, slaved cannons, stealth, copter loops. They were thinking of things to come with this one.

Very interesting review for one of my fave films, though admittedly I have not thought about this film in 25 years. Reading your review, the film has come crashing back to me and I see now that I took actual stunt work in films for granted back in the 80's. I would welcome the reprieve from CGI.

On the flip-side, I think it is a shame that John Badham has been relegated to only tv work for the last 14 years. I can only think that this must be a conscious decision since he has proven himself as a director with box office cred.

I saw Blue Thunder in the theatre like you did John. We're the same age so you have to remember back then, the 80s catch phrase didn't exist. The "Catch you later" came across more as Malcolm Mcdowell just being the typical alpha male jerk of the era. Boy, did the audience explode when Roy Scheider used it at the end by us as well! Do you remember a Starlog interview that stated Mcdowell was TERRIFIED of flying, and his greatest acting job was not having a look of horror in the flying scenes?

Before Roy Scheider had passed away, I had participated in an on-line discussion about his work in the 1983 film. I asked him what it was like working with Malcolm McDowell, and if they got along well during the filming of the movie.

He said that he and Malcolm got along really well. Roy had stated that they became good friends. He even said that Malcolm is a real good guy.

A friend of mine who met Malcolm at a science fiction convention told me that Malcolm also said that he really enjoyed working with Roy, too. He even said that he and Roy became such good friends that they 'couldn't leave each other alone.' LOL!

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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